TechCabal is reliably informed that Uber is considering an expansion beyond Lagos, to Abuja and Port Harcourt in the near future. Since they launched in Nigeria in mid-2014 with Ice Prince as their “Rider Zero”, the transportation network company has restricted its services to Lagos state. But all that’s about to change. Talking about change, I see they’ve underlined the expansion by changing their twitter handle from @Uber_Lagos to @UberNigeria.
Now, they are looking for potential partners in Abuja, Port Harcourt, and really wherever there’s a large enough addressable market to serve. Interested? Fill this out. Since they launched in Lagos, they’ve quickly become the de facto transport service for middle-class millennials like myself. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly the markets in Abuja and PH respond to their entry. For one, I know that Abuja does not have the transportation problems that made Uber such an attractive option for Lagosians in the first place.
I’m also wondering when Uber experiments like UberMOTO – their motorcycle hailing service that just launched in Thailand, UberRUSH – their logistics and delivery effort, and UberAUTO – their auto-rickshaw project will be introduced to the Nigerian market. I reckon that non-core projects like these – which were the inspiration behind Uber’s much talked-about rebranding – will be hits in emerging markets like Nigeria. Fingers crossed, on that one.
